(ALMOST) EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOUT TRIGONOMETRY, IN ONE ...

(ALMOST) EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOUT TRIGONOMETRY, IN ONE SIMPLE DIAGRAM

BLUE, THE TRIGONOGRAPHER blue@

Contents

1. Introduction

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2. The Fundamental Trigonograph

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3. Etymological-Definitional Properties

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4. Dynamic Properties

7

4.1. Fun-House Mirror Properties

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4.2. Range Properties

7

5. Static Properties (Identities and Comparaties)

9

5.1. Comparaties

10

5.2. Pythagorean Identities

11

5.3. Internal Proportionality Properties

12

5.4. External Proportionality Properties

14

5.5. Area Properties

15

6. Beyond the Right Angle

16

6.1. Explaining the Signs

16

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1. Introduction

Trigonometry --literally, "triangle measurement"-- is the study of the interplay between two wildly different notions of measurement: the lengths of segments and the sizes of angles.

As we all know, an angle is defined by a pair of rays emanating from a common point called the vertex (V ). If we were to pick two points (A and B), one on each ray, the same distance from the vertex, our Euclidean instincts might compel us to draw the line joining them; here, we'll make do with a segment. We might also draw a circle with center V passing through A and B, recognizing the segment as a chord of that circle.

A

B

A

B

V (a) A chord spanning an angle.

V (b) The chord changes as the angle changes.

Figure 1. A chord associated with an angle.

The connection between the chord and the angle --between the length of the chord and the size of the angle-- is clearly fairly tight. (Provided that we're always talking about A and B being the same chosen distance from V ,) An angle with the smallest possible size (0) would yield a chord with the shortest possible length (0); an angle of the largest possible size1 (180) would yield the longest possible chord (with length equal to the diameter of the circle, which is twice the chosen distance from A or B to V ); somewhere in there is a chord tied to the right angle (90), or to any angle you prefer.

Note that, while the qualitative connection is clear --the wider the angle, the longer the chord-- the quantitative connection is extremely murky. The chord that "goes with" the 180 angle is not twice as long as the chord that goes with the 90 angle; rather, it's twice as long as the chord that goes with the 60 angle! Part of understanding trigonometry is coming to grips with the seemingly bizarre nature of that connection,2 but, for the moment, the point is that the connection exists: If you know the size of the angle, then you can (somehow) infer the length of the chord, and vice-versa. The connection, murky though it may be, makes the information virtually interchangeable, which gives us problem-solving options.

That said, trigonometric tradition features not one, but six3 segments that "go with" an angle; as it turns out, none of the segments is the chord described above (although they all relate to it). Each trig segment its own special connection to the angle and offers its own special problem-solving advantage (not to mention: disadvantages). These segments --more precisely, their lengths-- give rise to what we know as the standard trig functions and their curious names: sine, tangent, secant,

1For the purposes of this discussion, angles don't get bigger than a straight angle. 2And that's not easy! Although the connection had been studied and used for thousands of years, the formula for converting angle sizes into chord lengths wasn't known until Madhava at the turn of the 1400s in the East or Isaac Newton in the 1670s in the West. (How do I cite the on-line Encyclopedia Britannica?) Before then, the state of the art was effectively to compile look-up tables of values, a practice that hand-held calculators made obsolete only a few decades ago. 3Actually, there were more (e.g., "versine" and "exsecant"), but they are no longer common use.

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cosine, cotangent, and cosecant. Sadly, many (if not most) modern treatments of trigonometry introduce the trig functions without regard to the underlying segments, robbing those functions of their geometry and their meaning, and, thus, making the subject appear arbitrary and cryptic to students. This note seeks to restore the segments to prominence, combining them into a remarkable figure called the Fundamental Trigonograph4 that promotes comprehension (not merely memorization) of many fundamental principles of trigonometry.

2. The Fundamental Trigonograph

We'll adopt a conventional setting by starting with the unit circle in the coordinate plane. That is, consider a circle of radius 1, centered at the origin (O). For the time being, we'll restrict our attention to the First Quadrant, letting X and Y be the points where the circle crosses the x- and y-axes, and choosing P to be a point somewhere in the quarter-circular arc between them. The angle XOP , which we'll say has measure , is the focus of our attention.

Y

P

O

X

Figure 2. A First Quadrant angle.

The first of trig's segments that "go with" is the perpendicular dropped from P to the x-axis. Its seemingly unmotivated construction traces back to the segment of the Introduction: if we mirror P OX in the x-axis, then we see this segment as half of the chord spanning twice the angle . Over the years, this semi-chord stole the mathematical spotlight from the full chord, and has come to be known as the "sine segment". (See Section 3.)

The second trig segment is the perpendicular "raised" from P to the x-axis. Being at right angles to the circle's radius OP , this segment is tangent to the circle, earning the name of tangent segment.5

The third trig segment has already been determined: It joins the origin to the point where the tangent segment meets the x-axis. As part of a line passing through the circle, it receives the name secant segment.6

The lengths of these segments are as intimately connected to the size of the angle as the chord discussed in the Introduction. Again, the exact formulaic connection is tricky (and beside the point here), but the general sense is clear: bigger angles have longer segments, and to know the angle's

4"Trigonograph" is this author's name for a geometric diagram that illustrates a trigonometric relation or concept, ideally in a way that makes things "obvious". The term is a back-construction of the word-playful trigonography, which could be taken to mean "the art of trigonometric visualization".

5Alternatively, we could have defined this segment by raising a perpendicular from X to an extension of radius OP . Doing this, and mirroring P OX as we did with sine, would reveal the segment to be half the tangent segment spanning twice the angle in a natural way.

6If we think of this segment as being half of some other (an insight useful for sine and tangent), then that other would be a proper secant segment, passing all the way through the circle.

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Y

Y

Y

P

P

P

O

X

(a) sine (a semi-chord).

O

X

(b) tangent (a tangent).

O

X

(c) secant (a secant).

Figure 3. Three segments associated with XOP .

size is to know each segment's length (and vice-versa). We'll cover specific observations about these connections in later sections of this note.

The final three trig segments form (ahem) a perfect complement to the first three, because they're constructed in the same way, but relative to P OY , which is the complement of P OX: the perpendicular dropped from P to the y-axis is the complementary sine --that is, the co-sine-- segment; the perpendicular raised from P to the y-axis is the complementary tangent (co-tangent) segment; and the complementary secant (co-secant) segment joins origin to the intersection of the co-tangent segment and the y-axis.

Y

Y

Y

P

P

P

O

X

(a) cosine (a semi-chord).

O

X

(b) cotangent (a tangent).

O

X

(c) cosecant (a secant).

Figure 4. Three co-segments associated with XOP . (Equivalently, the three "ordinary" segments associated with XOP 's complement, Y OP ).

Together, these six segments, along with the radius segment OP of length 1, form the figure we call the "Fundamental Trigonograph". As we'll see, the geometry of the segments neatly encodes numerous properties of, and relationships among, the corresponding trigonometric functions.

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